We've been calling Z's daycare "school". Somehow it makes us feel better about the idea of leaving her somewhere without us for long stretches of the day. At "daycare", she might languish: unloved, bored, directionless. At "school", she will learn many things and experience culture and meet new friends and make wild animals out of pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks. Some OTHER parents might drop their kid at daycare. Not us, though. We are taking ours to "SCHOOL".
Can you tell that the jury is still out about this whole thing?
We took her there on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday this week. I stayed with her for a bit and then left her for a half hour, 45 minutes and then finally, on Friday, for an hour. All three times she has reacted the same way. Excited when she sees the building and hears that she's going to "school". Happy to be playing there with the plethora of push toys and the ginormous sandbox and the oh-so-cute miniature chairs. Sad to say goodbye to me. Ambivalent to say hello. Pissed to leave.
This all sounds good, no? Then why is it still so hard? Why do I still feel like this is just wrong?
This has been a rough week for us, a reverse-Midas-touch week. You know, like everything you touch turns to .... poo. (What can I say? I have a soon-to-be-speaking toddler. We've been working on cleaning up our language.) Fabulous Husband was working late most of the week. On Tuesday, someone drove down our street shooting off a BB gun which hit our front window and sent my Chic Geek onto his stomach on the floor thinking we were being seriously shot at. I locked my keys in my car on Thursday, required FH to come all the way home to bail me out. On Friday, I was demonstrating a Pilates exercise on the physio ball to a client and I slipped and fell on my tailbone really, really hard. The same tailbone I had a hairline fracture in years ago when I was dropped in a dance rehearsal. The same tailbone my lovely daughter was pressing so insistently on during her sunny-side up delivery lo some 15 months ago. The same tailbone that is now, as I type, becoming intimate with a bag of frozen peas.
Z's been pissier with us this week. More frequently tantrum-y. Our great sleeper, the one who is put down in her crib awake and puts herself to sleep silently, has been fighting naps some times to the point of skipping one all together. (We haven't even begun to try to have her nap at "school" yet. Can I still blame it on school anyway?) She's started throwing things. She's clingier. She's less resilient in her moods and so, therefore, am I.
I really want to blame all the rough spots of this week on daycare because it's the obvious, new variable in this equation. Of course, there are always other variables and there is no control group for this little experiment we call parenting. Before daycare, teething was our default scapegoat for all things bad in Zland and she's got at least one tooth on deck at the moment. Plus, right about now is when she's supposed to drop one nap and I hear that things can go a little haywire when that happens. Maybe all this yuckiness in her behavior can be explained by the usual suspects of teething and sleep-shifting? I mean this IS the time that the crazy, defiant toddler behaviors come out, right?
All I know is that I'm still blaming me locking my keys in my car on daycare.
2 comments:
OOOF.
poor wyatt, ducking in his car, your poor tailbone. :( i didn't hear anything about that stuff on the phone because i was too busy blabbing about my insane life. selfish, selfish me.
:( :( :(
i hope the crap-tastic-ness wears off soon and things get back to being happy rather than annoying.
m.
We do the same thing at our house. The kids are going to "school," and Momma is going to "college." (Note that, pre-daycare, Momma used to go to "school.") We, too, have started our long transition process that, frankly, isn't going to be long enough for me. The best of luck to us both!
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